Uncommitted Movement urges DNC to reverse Palestinian snub: "Do the right thing!"
Chicago, Illinois - Leaders of the Uncommitted Movement and allies speaking up against Israel's US-backed war on Gaza urged the Democratic Party to reverse its decision to deny Palestinian-Americans a voice on the DNC stage in Chicago.
Community organizers, elected representatives, and doctors who served in Gaza were among those who spoke at a press conference Thursday, expressing their anger and disappointment at what many have called an "unforced error" by Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.
Despite months of intense negotiations with the party and the presence of dozens of Uncommitted delegates at the event, no speaker representing that Democratic constituency will be allowed to tell their story on the main stage of the DNC – which is being held in a city with one of the largest populations of Palestinian-American descent in the country.
"It shouldn't be this hard," said Waleed Shahid, a prominent progressive organizer and former Justice Democrats spokesperson. "We came here with the intention of mobilizing our communities for Vice President Harris to defeat Donald Trump."
"Our ask last night wasn't even about an arms embargo (on Israel). It wasn't even about policy. It was just to include Palestinian-Americans as a part of this party, just like any other community."
"Your party platform came out on Monday. And it said, 'We value Palestinian and Israeli lives equally.' And that is simply not what has been shown," Uncommitted National Movement co-director Layla Elabed said.
"This has been an embarrassment to those of us who still had faith in the Democratic Party, that we still had voices here."
Palestinian-Americans and allies "shouldn't have to beg our own party"
Speaker after speaker on Thursday testified to the DNC's refusal to accept any of the names put forward for consideration, including lawmakers such as Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman.
The first Muslim woman elected to Georgia's House of Representatives pointed out that her speech would have emphasized the need to unite behind the Harris-Walz ticket.
Minnesota Rep. Rashida Tlaib phoned into the press conference and broke down in tears as she spoke of some of the more than 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israel over the past 10 months. She evoked the memory of Emmett Till and his mother, who kept her son's casket open – "so that no one could look away" from what racist lynchers had wrought.
Till's family and the survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre have gathered on the sidelines of the DNC to demand justice.
There were also tears as doctors Tanya Haj-Hassan, Thaer Ahmad, and Tammy Abughnaim described the horrors they had encountered on the ground in Gaza, as well as the haunting concern for the colleagues they left behind in the besieged territory.
Though there was a sense of patience running dangerously thin with a party that has so far ignored calls for a meaningful shift in policy on Israel and its US-enabled destruction of Gaza, many speakers were at pains to stress that there was still time.
"We shouldn't have to beg our own party," Rep. Rashida Tlaib said. "This is the time to do right, right at this moment. Let's do the right thing."
Cover photo: Collage: Screenshot/X/Uncommitted National Movement